This blog is about spiritual awakening, maps and stages, the blinding effects of our strong momentum/conditioning (karmic propensities), view, realization, experience, etc. If you're new here, I recommend going through the 'Must Reads' articles (see sidebar). For discussions you are welcome to join the Awakening to Reality Facebook group

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Just like a movie, appearances are dependently originating as formation
like burning flames and bubbles without anything coming or going,
completely essenceless. Appearances are completely empty and non arising
by nature. Seeing this alone liberates. There is no persisting Essence
or self/Self anywhere, only dependent formations. Nothing is there, void
of substance yet appearing like flames and bubbles. As with a movie,
any sense of something or someone coming
from here or going there is wrong. It is because we fail to see the
nature of dharma (phenomena) as dependent formation that we conceive of
phenomena as having essences, as having a life of their own, that could
come and go, arise, abide and cease on its own. Has the burning flame
came from somewhere, arise, abide, and cease, or is merely an empty
dependent formation? You may not attribute some essence to characters in
the movie coming from somewhere and going somewhere, but you attribute
this to things and persons in real life. Rather see that all phenomena
are like burning flame or bubble that manifest on conditions and cease
upon cessation or conditions but without anything coming or going,
arising or ceasing. If you try to find where they abide, where they go
and come from, nothing whatsoever can be found. Appearing but nothing
“there”.

Do you say the
flame has some Essence that has gone somewhere else when ceased? Do you
say some Essence has arrived from somewhere when fire starts burning?
No, just dependent formations. All afflictive and non afflictive
phenomena roll on in dependence without a persisting Essence, agent, or
medium. Yet based on yesterday’s events, certain thoughts or actions
take place today, as the continuity of the chain of dependencies. Still
it is dependent formation, no self/Self involved.

Clinging and
afflictions subside in actualizing this as there cannot be any sort of
grasping at what is completely without Essence or self-existence. But
this liberation does not come from the illusion-like experience but from
the complete release of any notion of Essence.. the taste is illusion
like but it is the release of Essence that is liberating. Just like it
is not the experience of PCE/pure consciousness experience or a state of
no-mind (which can simply be peak experiences) that liberates but the
release of self/Self from realization of anatta that is liberating.

Seeing this requires us to see the right relationship between experience, view and realization, and not skewing to one aspect.

Dogen on the Heart of Tiles:

If
we belittle tiles as being lumps of clay, we will also belittle people as being
lumps of clay. If people have a Heart, then tiles too will have a Heart.

Shobogenzo,
Kokyo,
Hubert Nearman

I mentioned earlier that I will write something about dull nondual experience and realising the Presence or the Heart.

There is something tremendously alive, intelligent, a quality of pure
Presence and that is nothing inert but intensely luminous (not in the
sutric definition of purity and emptiness) but in the sense that the
intensity of our cognizant mind evokes the sense of powerful radiance
and illumination but without any separation between an illuminator and
the illuminated, with absolutely no agent/perceiver/doer involved. It
can evoke the sense of a radiance that is so intense that it completely
outshines all visual darkness of night and brightness of the sun. This
Presence is mystically alive, wondrous and magnificent, “more real than
real”, and the complete opposite of an inert or merely some dull state
of non conceptuality and absorption.

This outshining of
Presence-Awareness is not about some hidden invisible background
existing behind manifestation (which will be perceived this way at the I
AM stage) but is vividly manifest or “Presencing” (Presencing is a
better word than Presence as it is not a static background or entity and
none other than the dynamic stuff of transience) as the very “realness”
or “vividness” of any appearance/display, color, sound, scent, touch,
taste, thought, as if everything comes alive and there is something very
wonderful and beautiful about it. The brilliant light of
Presence-Awareness is none other than the body-mind-universe which when
deconstructed and freed from self/Self/physicality is experienced as
spheres of vivid light, colors, sounds, and sensations.

This luminosity is also not merely a heightened state of clarity as I explained:

“Someone asked me about luminosity. I said it is not simply a state of
heightened clarity or mindfulness, but like touching the very heart of
your being, your reality, your very essence without a shadow of doubt.
It is a radiant, shining core of Presence-Awareness, or Existence
itself. It is the More Real than Real. It can be from a question of "Who
am I?" followed by a sudden realization. And then with further insights
you touch the very life, the very heart, of everything. Everything
comes alive. First as the innermost 'You', then later when the
centerpoint is dropped (seen through -- there is no 'The Center') every
'point' is equally so, every point is A 'center', in every encounter,
form, sound and activity.”

There is a wide variety of methods to
bring oneself to an abrupt stoppage of concepts and a face to face
encounter of Pure Presence. All sorts of ways actually, some are safer
and some are a bit more risky. For example Thusness, I, Ramana Maharshi,
Ch'an Master Hsu Yun and many others have awakened through self-enquiry
and we are exponents of the method of self-enquiry. Sim Pern Chong
awakened to the I AM through breath meditation. Some get awakened
through a mere pointing out by a teacher. Some awakened through yogic,
tantric, kundalini paths. Ram Dass, David Carse and others have had
their initial realization of the Heart-essence through the use of
psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, 5-MEO-DMT, LSD, and
so on. (I am not advocating the use of drugs here, just stating that
some people have used them with such results) There are many other
methods and koans I did not mention.

And yet, many have awakened
through a simple shout by a Zen Master or a Dzogchen Master. A sudden
unexpected KATZ! or a PHAT! of a Zen and Dzogchen master brings one into
the immediate thoughtless face-to-face encounter of the luminous
heart-essence. At that moment, you just shift out from all that nonsense
and garbage in your head into just that instance of being blanked out
into Presence. It is not an inert trance but an alert, alive and yet
thoughtless state of Presence. Try it!
But whatever method one
uses to introduce that initial glimpse and taste of Presence, it is
always through the deepening of insight into non-dual anatta that brings
that taste to effortless uncontrivance and full-blown maturity in all
encounters and manifestations.

So when one has access to a state of nondual, one should ask whether it is dull and inert or suffused with a powerful sense of Presence. After anatta this Presence is no longer seen as a background but vividly shining forth as the manifold dynamic and seamlessly interconnected display, and the play of dharma and dependent origination is something which is alive, not just inert and mechanistic as someone wrote. All the qualities of I AM - infinite like space, powerful Presence, Luminosity, Clarity, Vitality and Intelligence are effortlessly experienced without contrivance, and furthermore no longer seen as something hidden behind but fully manifested from moment to moment activity and the sense of cosmic Impersonality which was once experienced as being lived through a reified cosmic intelligence is now experienced as the total exertion where a single activity is the exertion of the Whole - an activity that is seamlessly connected and coordinated with the entire Whole, a spontaneous exertion of the Whole of seamless dependencies. In other words all the taste of Presence similar to the I AM, including all the four aspects of I AM and the experience of anatta as requisites are fully present in the experience of Maha suchness, which is an experience of greatness beyond measure, where even a single breath feels cosmic and limitless.

"The purpose of anatta is to have full blown
experience of the heart -- boundlessly, completely, non-dually and
non-locally. Re-read what I wrote to Jax.

In every situations, in
all conditions, in all events. It is to eliminate unnecessary
contrivity so that our essence can be expressed without obscuration.

Jax wants to point to the heart but is unable to express in a non-dual
way... for in duality, the essence cannot be realized. All dualistic
interpretation are mind made. You know the smile of Mahākāśyapa? Can you
touch the heart of that smile even 2500 yrs later?

One must lose
all mind and body by feeling with entire mind and body this essence
which is 心 (Mind). Yet 心 (Mind) too is 不可得 (ungraspable/unobtainable)..
The purpose is not to deny 心 (Mind) but rather not to place any
limitations or duality so that 心 (Mind) can fully manifest.

Therefore without understanding 缘 (conditions)，is to limit 心 (Mind).
without understanding 缘 (conditions)，is to place limitation in its
manifestations. You must fully experience 心 (Mind) by realizing 无心
(No-Mind) and fully embrace the wisdom of 不可得
(ungraspable/unobtainable)." - John Tan/Thusness, 2014

Angelo GerangeloHi 🙂 I wrote this a while back. May be helpful may not. I think it’s too long so I will post in two parts.

—-I
have no idea who might find this useful or want to read it at all. You
could say that I actually can’t find “anyone”, anymore than I can find
a “my self” apart from the flow of phenomenality.

When
self is out of the way then the field of phenomenal activity informs
Itself. There is only luminous self-manifesting presence. This
all-encompassing absorption which manifests as color, movement, sound,
bodily sensation, texture, taste and smell has no “outside.” In and of
itself it is complete, self evident, spontaneous, and undeniable. It is
also void of substance, identity, solidity, continuity, purpose or
meaning.

This is what is meant by Dogen’s “when one side is illuminated the other side is dark.”

To
the content-addicted mind this may sound unappealing. However, in
direct experience this is blissful, profoundly peaceful and “right” in a
way that nothing in the concept-identified world of “me, my life, my
problems, my past and my future” even comes close to.

It
is also stateless, natural, and not “of time,” meaning there is no
appearance of it coming or going, arising or subsiding. There is a deep
intuition that “this is it,” however there is no longer anyone to hold
that intuition.

For example the direct experience
of a single color is the culmination of all that Is and it’s underlying
unmanifest potentiality, coming forth in and as that color. In this,
the intuitive knowing of interconnectedness arises as a gut level
instinct. This color “event” is distinct, pristine and has no
remainder. The seeing is intrinsic to the color itself and thus the
color cannot be said to be an object of seeing.

The above is true of all sense modalities (five gates).

This
vivid aliveness is experienced as the maximum exertion of the cosmos
coming forth to bring about this exact quantum event. This is the
ecstasy of coming into Being, not as a discrete entity experiencing a
world of phenomena, but as the phenomenon itself.

This
is precisely what is meant in the ninth oxherding picture by “the river
flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red,” as well as, “the water is
emerald, the mountain is indigo...”

Released of the burden of a subject, a watcher, or an experiencer, phenomena are seen to be absolutely free by nature.

In this freedom the flow of phenomenality is infinite in degree, quality and potential.

The
mark of this freedom is transience. This is where description really
falters. No conceptual paradigm of transience can communicate
transience.

Conception is largely about
description, which is the referencing of something in one’s previous
experience and saying “it’s like that,” or “it’s like that only with
such and such difference.”

Transient nature
contradicts this conceptual tendency on a moment to moment basis. Not
only is there no “before” to compare present experience to, there is no
background against which experience can be compared.

Indeed
what is being discussed here is not in the realm of experience, but
rather is experience-less. To put it simply, “this isn’t like anything,
it is exactly as it is.” This is why terms such as “is-ness,” and
“such-ness” are used.

Even to point to constant
flux, endless change is not quite right. To notice constant change
there must be a background or a standpoint of comparison, which cannot
be found.

So the use of conception, pointing,
description to “get at” transient nature is very slippery business. The
following may or may not be helpful.

Angelo GerangeloThe
most basic movement of consciousness is simple reflection, as if taking
a picture with a camera of what seems to be happening in the sensory
world. This is pre-conceptual and operates at a very fundamental layer
of processing but if it could be made
into a statement, this snapshot would say something like “oh this is how
it is, this is the nature of reality.” I would call this the
fundamental unit of “frame” or “view.”

Only after the collapse of frame is transient nature experienced as natural and is expressed as infinite-degree freedom.

It
is imperative here to clarify that what is meant by view or frame in
this context is not referring to mere opinion or belief. An opinion or
belief can be examined at the conceptual level. This can indeed be
quite profitable at earlier stages of realization “Who am I?” However
in deeper stage realization this fundamental tendency toward frame can
and often does go completely unnoticed. It underlies our most basic
tendencies, motivations, assumptions. It is the foundation upon which
the entire identity construct is built. This includes personal identity
(before kensho or what some call “I Am” awakening), as well as the much
more subtle identification with consciousness, universality,
pre-conceptual experience that almost always occurs after awakening.

The
challenge is that the contrast between concept identification (pre
awakening) and subtle identification with unbound consciousness,
universality, the absolute (post awakening), is often so dramatic that
it can be mistaken for enlightenment (anatta), and the remaining
identification can be completely overlooked. This manifests as the
belief “all there is is awareness,” like a constant state of watching
with no watcher. We can become convinced either overtly or
unconsciously that we have arrived.

To further
complicate the issue, we may have further realization beyond initial
awakening where the illusion of subject/object division collapses and
yet frame remains very much intact. This can become a
“pseudo-completion” and lead to all kinds of subtle but profound
distortions.

More commonly we subtly suspect that
the process of realization has not completed itself, but have no clue
how to proceed. We often find that many of the drives that motivated us
to awaken initially have subsided. We also often find that the
approaches to practice that worked previously do not seem to have the
same effectiveness or suddenly don’t feel relevant in the ways that they
used to.

So what to do? Well because the sense of
being a watcher, a doer, and a volitional agent are built on top of and
are thus effects of frame, we must investigate in a specific way so as
to avoid remaining in a subtle watcher/doer frame unknowingly.

Firstly
an investigation of the nature and function of frame can be helpful.
This investigation should be conducted in as direct a way as possible.
What I mean is that the functioning of frame will never cease by mere
understanding, conceptualizing etc. Having a conceptual framework can
be a good jumping off place but the inquiry must be non-conceptual,
direct and with the innocent curiosity of a child. As Christ said,
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Returning
to the snapshot analogy, the reflective mind (consciousness) takes
snapshots of sensory input on an ongoing basis and uses these snapshots
to construct a frame which is used as the foundation for “how things
are.” This tendency to construct and maintain an objective reality
through frame has tremendous momentum. It begins as a small child as we
become self aware in the most fundamental way somewhere between the
first and second year of life. In early childhood this frame tendency
is intermittent, but over time it starts to feel quite solid. This
solidity is experienced as continuity (self and world in time). This
continuity is fundamental to who we think we are and how we think the
world is. By early adulthood it has typically become so solidified that
most people would consider it absurd to even question. To question the
assumption that I am a choice maker moving through a world called ‘my
life,’ in which I solve problems and I have a distinct past and a future
that I’m creating, would be akin to insanity in the context of what we
consider normal human experience.

Even with later
stages of realization we don’t appreciate the breadth and magnitude of
the binding nature of frame until it ceases (anatta).

So
to “get under” frame we must become very clear on the basic units of
its construction. This must take place in direct experience only. A
mere conceptual understanding will be useless at best and a distraction
and hindrance at worst.

So start to become familiar
with these “snapshots.” To do this it is imperative that we spend time
directly investigating the sensory phenomena. There are many ways to
do this but the key is to look directly, closely, sincerely and
repetitively.

For example: As a color, shape or
movement (visual phenomenon) is perceived we should directly investigate
its nature without thought. When we do this earnestly we will begin to
see the point at which the snapshot is taken. We will see where the
direct experience of that color becomes “red” or “red shirt.” We will
begin to see where that direct experience of red, when the eyes are
closed becomes a mental image of what was previously viewed. These are
two examples of thought-reflection (snapshot). One is conceptual
(verbal/words/labels), the other is non-conceptual (visual/image).

Begin to clearly perceive the difference between direct sensory experience and reflective consciousness in this way.

Do not reject either experience just see them for what they are.

Similarly
when sound is heard, simply experience it directly. Notice the
difference between direct experience and the thought that follows that
labels that experience. Furthermore recognize that only a thought
following direct experience of a sound can state or suggest the presence
of someone who heard that sound.

In this way we
begin to perceive sound as it is. We start to experience the
no-thingness of it (you can never actually find it in real time bc it’s
gone as soon as it’s there). At the same time we start to experience
the non-dual (no subject object) aspect of it. This is the direct, all
encompassing, “just this” aspect.

As you clarify
both of these “sides” of the direct sensory phenomena there will be
clearer and clearer direct knowing that there is no seer, no listener,
no sensor, there is only hearing, seeing, sensing. In addition each
sensory “event” will clearly be realized as interconnected, complete,
vivid and “with maximum absorption.”

As this is
clarified over and over the sense of a doer, seer, hearer, perceiver
will begin to fade as it is only found in a thought, never in the
phenomena.

As my zen teacher used to say years ago, “at some point, the mountains, rivers and flowers simply replace you.”

Angelo GerangeloJohn Tan
it feels odd to call it an experience however I’d say yes. It’s more
simply a way of pointing to the natural phenomenal world as experienced
through/by/as the senses. There’s a completely indescribable sense to
everything as well. The best way I can
say is that there is no “way that things are.” Constant flux so the
moment I describe anything it’s already gone. Even the sense of wanting
to describe everything here is momentary and based on conditions (this
conversation) and is dissolving as it is forming. There’s no sense of
having arrived indeed the vessel through which one could say to have
arrived or left is only a momentary appearance.

The
transient nature again just defies explanation but I could liken it
to this. It’s as if one were walking down a lighted hallway and only
the section of hallway that you are in is illuminated. As if the lights
turn on and then off again as you walk past. Only there’s no you
walking and no hallway only the lights creating appearances of movement
and phenomena in that section. The lights in that analogy are the
sensory phenomena. Just vivid direct experience self-experiencing.

Further
it seems to quite paradoxically become more and more solid/physical.
The physicality of body/world is experienced as interpenetrated with the
“realization.” Like a mountain of emptiness, universe walking,
talking, sitting, working. The more I write the more I realize this
defies description.

There is value to the
precision of description/language in describing stages of realization
etc. personally I’m only interested in that insofar as it helps others
who genuinely want to wake up to the deepest truths. With that said
there can also be subtle fixations on precision of descriptions etc.
There is of course a whole other side to realization that is totally
instinctual, mysterious, unknowable. The innocence, vulnerability,
wonder and awe cannot be overlooked, particularly if we are going to
carry this into daily life as usual. I would never say anything is
complete here, I am in awe moment to moment and learn from everyone and
everything. It is literally impossible to have a sense that “I am
liberated but others aren’t.” In a very real way all thatcis seen is
Buddha nature. So if I speak to someone in process of awakening this is
how I see them. They are both awakening process and Buddha nature.
Those cannot be divided out. Not sure if that is helpful.

Disclaimer- I don’t stand by anything I say, it’s gone as soon as it arrives 🤣

Like
while walking in a shopping mall, there is no self, just the full
fluxing sensations forming the the appearance of the “shopping mall”.
Then when entering the car park, the entire fluxing sensations turn into
a “carpark”. The taste of this wondrous fluxing appearance is beyond
description.

As for physicality and senses, they are
simply conventional designations. In total exertion, all designated
boundaries dissolved and the six senses seamlessly inter-permeate each
other into one miraculous functioning. In the exertion of seeing for
example, it is not only the eyes see; the ears see; the nose sees, the
colors see. The entire body-mind-universe marvelously arise as this
moment of vivid scenery. In this moment, there is no seer and no
seeing, just the beautiful scenery.

Look, appreciate and dwell deeply into it in non-dual and ask,

Where is this scenery?

Unlike
sound, taste, thoughts and smell that vanish like evanescent mist, the
scenery is vividly and obviously there, but where is it?

‘Moonbeams
of Mahamudra’ by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (1511-1587) is one of the central
texts of the Kagyu Lineage. When it comes to mahamudra manuals, it ranks
in importance just behind the Ninth Karmapa’s ‘Ocean’ texts. For many
years, the only English translation we had of this text was the one done
by Lobsang Lhalungpa on Long Island back in the 70s under the
sponsorship of Dr. Shen. From 1990 to 1995, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
conducted a series of five annual retreats in Big Bear Lake in
California during which he gave a page by page reading transmission for
this text, and his brilliant lectures are now collected in another
marvelous book, ‘Essentials of Mahamudra’.

Most
Kagyupas practice mahamudra using the widely popular method known as
‘the five part mahamudra’ which depends heavily on deity yoga (the
generation and completion stages of mahayoga and anuyoga). But the Ninth
Karmapa’s and Tashi Namgyal’s mahamudra manuals embody the ‘essence’
tradition of mahamudra as found in Gampopa’s earliest presentation. This
mahamudra can be practiced independently of deity visualization, and
focuses directly on shamatha and vipashyana. The Sixteenth Karmapa
(Rangjung Rigpe Dorje) felt that this direct system would be more
suitable for the western mind, and I heartily agree.

All
these years later, I have become an avid student of Dudjom Lingpa’s
dzogchen system as taught by Alan Wallace, and I am quite amazed at the
similarities between Gampopa’s essence mahamudra and Dudjom’s
quintessential dzogchen. Both systems hinge on mastery of shamatha and
vipashyana, moving from recognition of the nature of mind to rigpa and
on to spontaneous presence. The only significant difference is that the
mahamudra manuals conclude with ‘cutting through’ (khregs chod), while
Dudjom’s dzogchen manuals add a subsequent step in ‘direct crossing
over’ (thod gyal).

Alan
Wallace published Dudjom’s five principle dzogchen texts in a trilogy
called ‘Visions of the Great Perfection’, and now we have something new
on the mahamudra front as well. Elizabeth Callahan has just finished new
translations of both Tashi Namgyal’s ‘Moonbeams of Mahamudra’ and
Wangchuk Dorje’s ‘Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance’, and they are
both included in the same volume. This book will be released on March
12th. It won’t be cheap as books go, but it will be the best bargain of
your life as liberation goes! Elizabeth translated the original
restricted version of Wangchuk Dorje’s ‘Ocean’ manual, and it is superb.
She knows her stuff. If I were you, I would pre-order this book and set
aside some time in March for the meditation cushion!